Valve announces the Source Filmmaker is now in open beta, offering everyone the chance to try their hand at machinima production. Word is:

Valve, creator of best-selling game franchises (such as Counter-Strike, Half-Life, Left 4 Dead, Portal, and Team Fortress) and leading technologies (such as Steam and Source), today announced the open beta release of Source Filmmaker (SFM), for free, to everyone.

The SFM is a storytelling tool Valve developed inside the Source Engine to create all its animated short films, including those in the "Meet the Team" series of Team Fortress 2 shorts. The SFM condenses the production pipeline of an animation studio down onto a single gaming PC. To help the community get started, the SFM includes all assets from Team Fortress 2 along with assets from two of the "Meet the Team" short films.

To see the newest and top-rated work being done by the community in the SFM, please visit www.steamcommunity.com/sfm.

For more information and to download the SFM, please visit www.sourcefilmmaker.com